Industry professionals gathered virtually to engage in the ICAA’s 2021 Forum focused on Wellness attracting the Middle Market. While building upon concepts that emerged from the 2020 Forum, attendees were charged to identify consumer persona attributes, discuss the benefits of leveraging the various dimensions of wellness and to strategize on opportunities for meeting the needs and aspirations of prospective residents, family, and staff. During the Plenary session, we were honored to share details surrounding our Wellpoint Community project alongside co-panelists Michael Tompkins of Hutchinson Consulting and Chip Conley of Modern Elder Academy (“MEA”).

Historically, the senior living sector has been slow to adopt new ideas or enabling technology. The wheels of change started to turn more quickly over the past decade due to increased focus on entitlement insolvency, awareness of Age Wave demographics and the regulatory paradigm shift toward value-based care where providers recognized a passive mandate to either Lead or Exit. While there are always outliers returning from the wilderness with bold ideas, meaningful collective progress in the Senior Living Industry has largely been moving at a snail’s pace.

Over the course of two days, it quickly became evident that there is a common journey underway where we all (professionals and consumers alike) are seeking greater meaning and choice from the communities that we design and/or choose to call home. While there is no question that the current emphasis on Wellness Real Estate favors a more affluent market, it seems evident that the systems approach that a true wellness offering demands will naturally preserve and/or reveal opportunities for all age cohorts and income classifications to come together and care for the larger self.

Insights from the Panel

Joseph McCarron – CEO of Wellpoint Community – described the kit-of-parts representing our prototype and business plan. A cornerstone of this strategy is to deliver an expansive menu of personalized program options. The confluence of senior living, integrative medicine, boutique hospitality and residential living on a single site promotes the convenience of access, choice and affordability. These attributes garner intergenerational appeal and create opportunity for the emergence of a genuine community.

Michael Tompkins’ career history and experience qualifications ideally exemplify the exhibiting convergence of healthcare and hospitality – two umbrella keywords that largely treetop the diversity of sectors representing the Global Wellness Economy. Having seeded his career in nursing care, his direct caregiving foundation and executive achievements position him to have a leading influence in combining and aligning these sectors while honoring the valued perspective of guests and staff alike.

Chip Conley has been playing a leadership role on the world stage for decades and the Senior Living Industry is fortunate to have gained his captive interest and ambition. As a repeat industry disrupter, he laid the groundwork for his current focus with the lessons he shared in “Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder.” While ageism in the modern workplace can largely be addressed by honoring the experiential knowledge (wisdom) of elders, the broader detriments of modern culture do not appear to have any modern antidote. As he transitions toward helping to redefine retirement, his emphasis on championing “regeneration” with a biodynamic approach to “Regenerative Community” holds another possible lesson that we wish to amplify after offering some context.

What is Regenerative Agriculture?

Any phrase that is prefixed with “regenerative” can be contextualized by understanding the history of the regenerative agriculture movement. Charles Massey’s 2018 TEDxCanberra Talk provides a token example of the growing sentiment that reconnecting to nature and its wisdom is a prerequisite to healing ourselves. Simply stated, Modern Agriculture and Modern Medicine (Sick Care) are the culprits behind our dis-ease states. Are we sick largely because of the way we eat and the way we farm? What if reclaiming our knowledge and wisdom about nature could also help to reconnect us with our own health and well-being? While we have not yet had the opportunity to confirm the sentiment, it seems clear that Chip and other pioneering minds understand this to be true.

Everything in its Time

When the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) released their “Build Well to Live Well” report in January 2018, they helped to fortify an idea that had been germinating for decades without requisite support or nourishment outside of senior living. Creation and evidence-based promotion of the “Wellness Real Estate” and “Wellness Community” banners empowered them to leap frog competing green building interests and galvanize professional and public support towards recognition that our built-environment is likely the greatest determinant of our health and well-being. More specifically, GWI asserted that up to 80-90% of health outcomes depend upon the external and environmental factors in our “wellness ecosystem.” If you layer on to this groundswell of commercial real estate interest in wellness that “nursing homes” emerged as a crisis center during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is no wonder that so many Industry Stakeholders are finally focused on creating healthier spaces and places.

In a time where “wellness washing” is running rampant, we are all being called to under-stand and share the “what” and “why” of our approach so that others can feel the pull and participate in both the programs and their overarching purpose – to pursue higher levels of meaning, engagement, support, and activity together.

Everything in its Place

In their 2012 research article “Designing from Place: A regenerative framework and methodology,” Pamela Mange and Bill Reed offer that “Transitions to new worldviews ‘take hold’ as the new paradigms they give rise to become embedded across disciplines and fields of endeavor, increasingly being manifested as accepted standards, protocols and processes.” In this paper they are referring specifically to the paradigm of regenerative thinking and outline four criteria or gateways through which we must pass in order to complete this shift of thinking and being.

In a final nod of tribute to the relevancy of this important article, Charles Krone’s Levels of Work Framework is shared to graphically reinforce the sentiment that evolutionary processes (potential) will never be engaged if you are only operating within the explicate order of maintenance and operations.

Whether we are referring to our culture, our industries, our business or even our own cellular structure, we are reminded of the requisite balance between chaos and order that defines all complex adaptive systems (nature). If we want to attract any market to our “Wellness” offerings we should first focus on an organic approach where we lead with authenticity and diversity of choice/offerings.

Takeaways

The Forum proved an engaging event that bred genuine enthusiasm and creative thinking surrounding the change scape represented by the Senior Living Industry.

• Lifestyle offerings that promote enriching lives and active engagement will augment if not supplant the traditional provider focus on ageism and supportive care alone.
• New business models responsive to consumer choice will continue to prove threatening to the traditional senior living communities.
• Flexibility and choice of offerings will foster growing collaboration and convergence of all stakeholders in aging services.
• Emerging from the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 circumstances is a heightened awareness and demand for “living well” at home with catered service offerings. At the same time, opportunities for meaningful social connection (digital and In-Real-Life) are critically important. The Senior Living Industry is ripe for leading a strategic societal redirection given these exhibiting trends and the profoundly changing consumer profile.
• A consumer centric strategy will require more education, integrative thinking, and execution that pioneers a balance between self-care, social wellness and eco-literacy.
• Consumer needs, preferences and expectations mandate a dramatic new approach to real estate development and operational programming that is highly personal, modular, adaptive and cued by progress toward the new “future of medicine.”

We advocate “Redirecting” and “Cultivating Convergence” for the future of aging services – “Where It All Comes Together”.  Undoubtedly, dramatic change abounds.  If adversity truly breeds opportunity, change agents alert to new directions stemming from “systemic” and “holistic” strategies more aligned with the “natural order of things” are poised for great success.

On October 25, 2019 The Age Friendly Foundation launched its inaugural Revolutionize 2019 Conference Event held at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. 

The event was co-sponsored by the Boston Chapter of Aging 2.0 and included over 300 attendees representing a diverse forum of business and industry stakeholders engaged in aging services.  The Foundation was established in late 2018 as a vehicle to augment the continued growth of the Aging2.0 Boston Chapter’s programming together with related advocacy, education and events that champion healthy, active and productive aging for all ages.

Recently named the Silicon Valley of Aging by Inc. Magazine, Massachusetts provides an ideal backdrop to this international conference event promoting innovations in aging.  As a center of pioneering research, education, healthcare, technologies and public policy, Boston is the perfect host to Revolutionizing the “Future of Aging”. Revolutionize 2019 represented a diverse assembly of “Best-in-Class” thought leaders coming together with integrative intentions. 

SHARING MOONSHOTS

When the “Revolutionize” theme for this Fall’s conference was seeded, we reflected on the humbling reality that early American colonists were relying upon hand-written letters or printed pamphlets that had to be carried by horseback or ship in order to share knowledge with cities and the rural lands where so many lived. The Committees of Correspondence that were ultimately formed and networked could arguably be credited for our ultimate success in organizing for Independence.  Fast forward to today, where technology empowers us to connect instantly across the globe and it follows that we should be able to advance any common cause with ease IF we pursue it together. Successful outcomes naturally hinge on our ability and willingness to adopt shared language (or data) and ensure its “interoperability” for all stakeholders.

Simply stated, the common cause for this inaugural year of Revolutionize is to transform our views and practices surrounding so-called “aging services” in an even more inclusive and progressive fashion.  The consumer profile underlying “senior living,” and or “age-tech” designations are profoundly changing – induced by unprecedented longevity and clearly emerging preferences for wellness, lifelong learning and active engagement that unifies rather than divides. Conveniently, this shift amplifies the needs and desires of all age groups and all 8,000 day life stages in our emergent Four Generation Society.

Key attributes of this new landscape will exhibit growing intergenerational presence, new technologies, progressive programming and escalating capital resources to support healthier, active and enriched lifestyles for everyone.

SOCIAL INCLUSION

In his opening keynote, Dr. Alexandre Kalache set the stage for a new chapter in the Age Friendly Movement by amplifying the theme of growing inequality (economic, racial, gender, age-related) across both the United States and world stage at large.  His remarks inspired us to acknowledge that we can likely accomplish even loftier goals if we focus on macro issues like social inclusion but approach them from a micro (local) perspective. This insight (arguably inspired by his formative role in the Age-Friendly Cities program) amplifies recognition that a bottom-up process is most effective when you are trying to turn the wheels of change.

The WHO Global Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities currently includes 1000 cities and communities in 41 countries, covering over 240 million people worldwide. On April 12, 2017, Governor Baker signed Executive Order 576 establishing the Governor’s Council to Address Aging in Massachusetts and the Commonwealth became the 2nd state in the nation to enroll in the AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities.  During his 2019 annual State of the City address Mayor Walsh announced the launch of the Age Strong Commission (previously known as the Commission on Affairs of the Elderly). More recently, he has launched the AgeStrong Public Awareness Campaign to further support awareness of inclusion and the fall conclusions of an ageist perspective:

While the general eight-domain framework (branded by AARP as Livability) dovetails with many other overlapping standards, it is the policy connection, action plans and subsequent traction in the City of Boston, State of Massachusetts and across the country and globe that makes this movement noteworthy and deserving of active acknowledgment, promotion and advancement. 

DON’T TREAD ON ME

When Dr. Joseph Coughlin took to the stage to close the event, he challenged the audience to take up arms (metaphorically) at a deeper level.  If we want to “revolutionize,” it follows that we ought to be truly revolutionary in our speech and in our thinking. He proffered further that specific words, like Age-friendly, Livable, Caregiver & Mobility ought to be abandoned as we charge ahead.  While words do matter, we advocate that recognition should be given to those that have already taken root in our communities and represent progressive movements to be expanded upon.  Age Friendly primary among them.

In reflecting further upon the attributes of a true “revolution,” Coughlin cited that signs and symbols are typically at the epicenter of all social movements. The best symbols are often simultaneously generic and descript in their messaging so that a majority can rally to its messaging in a more personalized way that still honors the collective intent. The revolutionary symbol of “Don’t Tread On Me” comes to mind where the pictorial snake mantra of “Join or Die” for the 13 colonies is juxtaposed with the more deeply rooted anthropomorphism of a Rattlesnake and its deadly bite when threatened. In a modern era where corporate or personal branding has taken precedence over the tribal markings, tartans or nation flags of old, what is the next banner we might wave intentionally as a collective humanity?

FORWARD MARCH…

Revolutionize denotes initiatives to effect a radical change to existing conditions.  The dramatic change landscape exhibited by aging services and all its influencers is replete with opportunities yet burdened by challenges.  We can be the change agents analogous to our revolutionary forebearers – marshalling everyone together in a common cause – to deliver upon recognizing that aging is a national treasure rather than a burden to carry.  Fueled by knowledge, experience and tools of advancing technologies, we can indeed foster the requisite collaboration for a forward march and be the catalysts for convergence to reimagine and redirect the future of aging – for all ages!